Rosie the School-Teacher

A Story by DeeAnna Dove

A short romance I submitted to Women's World Weekly

“Hi, I’m hoping you can help me.” A tall, red-headed woman was Copper Mountain Automotive’s first customer that day, but Kelly was already elbows deep replacing a head gasket on a Chevy Nova dropped off by a client the day before. Steve, Kelly’s boss and owner of the shop, strolled out of his office with his Dead Head coffee mug in hand.

“What can we do for ya, young lady?”

The young lady narrowed her eyes at Steve. “Something’s wrong with my clutch. I can’t push it in.” She gestured toward her Honda Civic with a slender wrist and hand.

“We’ll have to run a diagnostic. If you got ten minutes…”

“Sure. I’ll wait. Thank you.”

The garage was large. It had five bays, all occupied by vehicles. But there was no waiting room. The young woman was forced to stand off to the side and wait under the morning sun. She tried to look casual, playing with her cell phone, but her sleek pixie-cut and slim, khaki slacks indicated an auto shop was far from her familiar habitat.

“You a school-teacher?” Steve asked.

“Yes. How did you know?” she replied, politely perplexed.

“Ya got all these papers in here. I bet kids these days keep your pretty little head busy.”

Kelly cringed. One of these days, that old man is going to drive off a customer. Kelly hoped this woman wouldn’t be the first.

The woman didn’t respond to Steve. Instead, she put her phone away and crossed her arms, keeping her narrow eyes on him.

“Looks like you got a bad clutch master cylinder.” Steve was unplugging his computer. “We’re pretty backed up, but we could get to it tomorrow.”

She sighed and was scratching her head. She responded slowly, “How much will it cost?”

“Oh, off the top of my head… about eighteen. But that’s just an estimate now, sweetheart. Don’t hold me to that.”

Oh, no. She’s going to walk away for sure now, thought Kelly. He couldn’t bring himself to look up now. He kept his eyes in his engine bay.

“Sir, you can call me Ms. Quinn,” she snapped. “And I can’t afford that right now.” She softened her tone, only slightly. “Where is the clutch master cylinder?”

Steve took a moment to recover from Ms. Quinn’s sharp introduction. “It’s uh… here,” he stooped down and pointed to the clutch pad, “underneath the clutch.”

“So you just remove a few screws, pull out the old one, and screw in the new one?” she asked.

He chuckled nervously. “Well, it ain’t quite that simple, now. There’s uh… well, now look. I ain’t gonna tell you how to do my job, miss… Quinn. I got a business to run here.”

“Sir, you’ve been condescending to me from the minute you laid eyes on me. And now you’re presuming I can’t fix my own car. How- “

Kelly couldn’t keep out of this now. He came out from his cave.

“Hi, there.” Kelly managed to find a clean rag on his way to the driveway. He wiped his hands on it as he walked up. “I’m Kelly, and you are…”

A wave of relief washed over Ms. Quinn’s face. “Parker Quinn, nice to meet you.” They shook hands. Neither pulled away immediately.

Steve scowled. “Clutch master cylinder,” he declared to Kelly, before walking back to his office, defeated.

“I just can’t afford it,” Parker confessed to Kelly. “How much does a cylinder cost, anyway? Twenty bucks?”

“About forty, actually.” Kelly couldn’t hide his smile now.

Parker smiled back. “Tell me I can do it.”

Kelly let out a ‘ha’. “Uh, well… yeah. You can do it. You’re lucky you drive a Honda. Hondas are pretty easy. There are plenty of how-to videos on the Internet. I can tell you you’ll need ten and twelve millimeter wrenches, a flat-head screwdriver, and a few cotter pins.”

“What are those?” She was still smiling.

“Here.” Kelly moved quickly to his toolbox and returned with a few silver pins. “You’ll see how they’re used once you get started.”

Parker shook out of the trance. “What am I doing? I should be writing this down.” She pulled out a pad and pen from her purse. “Wrenches…”

“Ten and twelve millimeter,” Kelly repeated.

“Screwdriver?” She glanced up at him.

“Flat-head.” He locked his eyes with hers.

“And, um…”

“Brake fluid. After you get the new master cylinder in, you’ll have to bleed and service the slave. That requires two people. I can help you with that,” Kelly offered.

“Sure,” Parker said, keeping her eyes on his. “I guess I should get your number while I’m at it.”

“555-2970.”

Parker managed to pull her eyes away to write this down.

“Kelly. Thank you for your help.”

“My pleasure, Parker.”